


Rising to the Challenge

by mogwai_do



Category: Highlander: The Series, James Bond (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 19:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogwai_do/pseuds/mogwai_do
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes motivation is the only difference between a setback and a cunningly disguised opportunity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rising to the Challenge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Banbury](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banbury/gifts).



Between one step and the next Duncan left behind the miserable, wet winter that was so often London’s fate and the flashing, gaudy decorations that festooned even the poorest of corner shops. Inside the air was warm and dry, scented with pine and brandy. There were wreaths in here too, but these were real holly leaves and the garlands were tasteful in red and silver and gold. His heels echoed on the tiled floor and he wasn’t surprised to see someone quickly and unobtrusively wipe away the wet footprints he left behind. The man behind the heavily carved reception desk merely nodded a greeting; this wasn’t the sort of place that required written records of its patrons.

He’d been frequenting the club for over a week now, enough to have been seen and noted in the circles that mattered. There was a club like this in every capital city in the world; the kind of place that provided the things money couldn’t buy to the sort of clientele for whom money was no object. The oak-panelled walls were richly stained with secrets and the thick carpet beneath his feet was the dark red of spilled blood.

He accepted a glass of cognac from a discreet attendant and took a slow sip as he passed the foot of the broad staircase. The upstairs rooms were for more... specialised services, but he was heading for the main room. Fires burned in marble fireplaces and the high backs of heavy leather armchairs were fortresses for their cigar-smoking inhabitants. Duncan took a place by the window, the heavy drapes blocking the sight if not the sound of the heavy rain outside. It was a welcome reminder that not everything was within the control of the people who made their homes in rooms like these.

He felt out of place here. He was wealthy enough and he could walk the talk as well as any man with four hundred years’ experience, but he didn’t belong here and no amount of money would change that. Information was currency, lives were tools, and power was nothing so mundane as money or strength.

A tingle of Presence skirted the edges of his consciousness and Duncan parted the heavy drapes, peering into the rain-streaked darkness, but it was a fleeting contact and not uncommon in major cities. There was a temptation to leave and see if he could pick up the trail, but he wasn’t looking for a Challenge, not really, just an excuse to leave.

Instead he let the drape fall back into place and reminded himself sternly why he had come here in the first place: things between he and Methos needed resolving. He’d been aware, virtually since they met, of the attraction that sparked between them. The draw of the other Immortal was almost magnetic: it repulsed as often and as strongly as it attracted and it seemed to depend on nothing more than how they faced on any given issue.

Just like now: it was too easy to see Methos fitting right in here, in fact he had his suspicions about the club’s ownership. As much as Duncan didn’t like it, he had to acknowledge that Methos could be as ruthless as any of the room's occupants, yet he also couldn’t deny that the old Immortal's actions were often tempered by a humanity that Duncan sometimes found himself envying and hoped he would still retain a thousand years from now.

All things considered, it might have been sensible to leave their friendship as it was, to ignore the sparks that flared from time to time. The Game made their lives complicated enough as it was, but Duncan had lived too long not to see that for all their arguments, they always returned to each other. He was conscious of the comfort he had drawn from the other man’s presence at times, as much as he suspected Methos relied upon his. There was love there, he knew, and he was sure Methos knew it too, though he would probably never make the first move. Duncan had lost loves before, but it had never been for lack of trying on his part.

So, much soul-searching and a long and very embarrassing conversation with Amanda later, he had resolved to finally broach the subject to Methos, only to discover that he had left Paris two days earlier. Duncan might have thought the old Immortal was deliberately avoiding the conversation except that he had made no secret of his departure or destination and hadn’t even sworn Joe to secrecy.

The Watcher had been all too happy to relate the circumstances of Methos’ departure: something to do with an ex-wife calling in a favour. It was no rekindled romance, purely a business transaction as far as Joe had been able to discern, which had been something of a relief to Duncan. That had been intriguing enough in its own right, but Joe had told Duncan frankly that the woman had scared the hell out of him. She hadn’t been young, but he would never have called her old; she’d had an aide with her and an attitude that did not suffer fools gladly, if at all. On further consideration they both reckoned she had to be Government or really big business and either possibility was going to require some kind of explanation from the other Immortal on his return.

Instead of waiting as he always had when Methos had taken one of his perennial jaunts, Duncan had decided to follow the other Immortal to London, more specifically to this club. But although Methos had definitely been here, he had yet to show himself again in Duncan’s presence.

Duncan paused in his musings and scanned the room again, but turned away abruptly, seeing a familiar figure enter the room. He narrowly avoided the attention of a pair of sharp, blue eyes; he’d run into Siviter before on one of his previous visits and had no wish to encounter the spook again. He imagined Methos would find the man’s scathing perception entertaining, but Duncan found the man’s callous disrespect of those less fortunate than himself distasteful.

He continued his observation and realised to his surprise that near one of the fireplaces was an actually welcome face: Duncan nodded slightly in barely perceptible greeting to Mark. The British Ambassador to the US was a sometime friend and had sponsored Duncan’s membership of the club in repayment of an old favour. In all honesty Duncan liked the man; he seemed as out of place here as Duncan himself felt. He was a man of principle, neither naïve nor foolish, and Duncan sometimes wondered how on earth the man had ended up in politics at all, never mind survived as long as he had.

Then again, perhaps part of the reason for that stood just at his shoulder. Duncan neither liked nor trusted the man’s security advisor and bodyguard: he was too ruthless. Then again, he also stood a little closer to his employer than the job really required and Duncan found he couldn’t object to anything that kept his friend a little safer.

Presence intruded on his senses again, closer this time, and one that had been familiar to him since Bordeaux. He wasn’t surprised then to see Methos walk in; he was surprised to see him dressed in a manner that Adam Pierson could never afford. A tailored, three piece suit in navy blue with a subtle grey pin-stripe; a silver-grey tie and matching platinum cufflinks: he looked a million dollars – at least – but it was an understated million.

He was also with another man and Duncan felt himself bristle as he eyed the possible competition. The interloper was blonde, blue-eyed and broad-shouldered and his black suit was just as expensive as Methos’, the platinum accents making his eyes reflect a colour like steel. He walked with a confident step, but there was a leashed power and a vigilance to his glance that left Duncan in no doubt that he was aware of everyone in the room.

He knew the moment Methos’ eyes lit on him: a slow smile slid across the angular features and he leaned over and murmured something to his companion. Duncan waited patiently as they crossed the room to him, a path clearing for them even among the powerful. He frowned and looked a little closer: their attitude to one another was not dissimilar to what he had witnessed between the Ambassador and his bodyguard, yet their body language was peculiarly lacking in emotional content. He wondered briefly what favour Methos owed his former wife that would involve this blonde-haired assassin, because Duncan wasn’t blind.

They stopped in front of him and Duncan was conscious of the way the space around them seemed to widen in response. To his surprise though, Methos’ smile was warm and welcoming in a way he had rarely seen. Perhaps, he realised belatedly, he should have followed Methos on one of his trips before; it wasn’t impossible that he had always been meant to. He pushed the thought aside; he’d spent too long in the company of calculating men.

The blonde man regarded him with the full force of his blue eyes, weighing Duncan up in a manner he rarely encountered in Challenges, never mind outside of them. He met the unspoken challenge head on; he’d come to London, spent a small fortune to be here and tolerated company he would otherwise prefer never to meet - all for Methos. He wasn’t going to be chased away by a mortal with a too-perceptive look, no matter how dangerous he might be. He was no slouch in that department either, if he said so himself. He smiled and wondered if it was his imagination that the space around them grew just a little wider.

Still, he held out his hand, determined not to let the company Methos kept deter him. “Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod,” he introduced himself.

After a moment the man relaxed minutely and took Duncan’s offered hand, smiling amiably, though it did little to lessen the challenge in his eyes. “Bond. James Bond.”

Out of the corner of his eye Duncan caught Methos’ satisfied smile as he casually waved over a waiter with a tray of drinks. Taking a glass Methos raised it briefly in toast before taking a sip; Duncan took one himself as the assassin did the same almost simultaneously.

“Duncan, we’re about to make friends and influence people," Methos confided slyly and Duncan was surprised how little Methos’ voice sounded like Adam’s: it was older, richer and faintly amused. He recognised the tone though and it strongly suggested that Methos and his new friend were about to happen to someone - probably from a great height. He smiled inwardly, this room offered a wealth of deserving candidates he was sure. “Would you care to join us?”

Duncan caught the quick flicker of surprise in the blue eyes at the invitation and felt a momentary sympathy for Bond, but only momentary. He really didn't like the faintly proprietary proximity the man kept to the old Immortal. Duncan raised his glass briefly, returning Methos’ toast with a smile of his own; he hadn’t come to London looking for a challenge, but it seemed he’d found one anyway. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> For the Highlander Secret Santa 2008.
> 
> There are also a couple of cameos for those that spotted them - Siviter was a character in Spooks (MI-5 for those in the US) played by Hugh Laurie with great relish, and Mark was a character played by Jason Isaacs in The State Within.
> 
> Oh yeah, and in my head Methos' ex-wife is M :)


End file.
